Cal Bears Football player, Richard Fisher, who stands 6'-5' and weighs 280 pounds, chows down on a plate of vegetarian ravioli in Berkeley at Gypsy's Trattoria Italiana on Monday, September 27, 2010.
Kat Wade / Special to the Chronicle

As a big, burly lineman on the Cal football team, Richard Fisher can be fairly characterized as a meat-and-potatoes kind of guy, hold the meat. Please, hold the meat.

Fisher, 6-foot-2 and 280 pounds, is a rarity in college football: an offensive lineman who is also a vegetarian. Put him and his fellow O-line veggies around the country in the same room and it wouldn't take long to call roll.

"People ask if I'll ever eat meat. Someday, maybe," Fisher said. "But I worry about what might happen to my intestines the day after. I'm not sure it would be a good experience."

When fellow guard Brian Schwenke was asked if he could function as a vegetarian, he recoiled in horror. "I'd die," he said.

As for Fisher, a lacto-ovo vegetarian, he's living quite nicely on a diet of milk, cheese, eggs, pasta, beans, fruit, pizza (remember, hold the meat), peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, protein shakes, ice cream and, of course, vegetables. Stir-fry dishes with eggs is a favorite, as is pizza, particularly from the Cheeseboard in Berkeley.

Fisher, a senior from the Santa Cruz Mountains hamlet of Ben Lomond, has been a vegetarian longer than he can remember. A line in Fisher's bio in the media guide is startling: "has been a vegetarian since he was a toddler."

For that he can thank his progressive parents, Eric and Brett Fisher. They embraced a vegetarian lifestyle years ago and raised three no-meat children.

"My parents originally ate meat," Fisher said. "They went to a Tony Robbins seminar and got the global food perspective. They were into working out and being healthy. They actually started out vegan, so I was a vegan for a couple years. That was really hard to get protein, especially growing up, so they said, OK, we can eat dairy."

While he walks around at 280 or thereabouts these days, Fisher was slender in his early teenage years. The photo on his driver's license was taken when he was 15 1/2 and got his learner's permit. The height and weight listed on the license were also from that age, when he was string-bean-like at 6-feet and 150 pounds.

The photo bears no resemblance to the Richard Fisher of today, 23 years old with a wispy beard and offensive-lineman muscles. "A crazy transformation," he said. In fact, Fisher might be the strongest vegetarian in college football, able to bench press 405 pounds, power clean 350 and squat 500.

To keep up in the weight room and to keep his weight around 280, Fisher must consume 5,000 to 6,000 vegetarian calories each day, which amounts to a job in itself. His life is like the roadside diner marquee of old, blinking the neon imperative "Eat" endlessly.

"You pretty much eat until you can't eat any more," he said. "It's pretty much a job."

Team nutritionist Suzanne Nelson said she enjoys talking food with Fisher and helping him design a nutrition plan for his training table meals. She recently introduced him to the Japanese soy bean edamame, high in protein and vitamins A, B and C.

"He's been doing this for so long, he's really got a good sense of knowing what he needs in terms of consuming a variety of different foods and getting enough protein," Nelson said. "My concern is making sure he gets enough calories."

Fisher, a backup guard who has received playing time in Cal's first four games, packed away some calories the other day during lunch at Gypsy's Italian restaurant on Durant Avenue near campus. It's not a vegetarian place but has an ample variety of meatless dishes.

Across the street is that hallowed Berkeley institution, Top Dog, a favorite of many college students. Fisher has never been there, of course.

"I hear they have veggie sausages now," he said.

Fisher is on course to graduate with a degree in civil and environmental engineering. His interest is in sustainable food and green development. He's in the right place for those pursuits.

"Coming to Berkeley, I've gotten a little more global food consciousness," he said. "If we ate a little less meat, we'd probably be better off. I understand why people eat meat. I definitely don't want to kill animals, but I'm not going to say, 'Shame on you' for eating meat."

What would be a shame is if Fisher never walks through the door of Top Dog, now that veggie sausages are on the menu.